Accounting, Finance, HR & Administration
Monthly Close
The month end close is a critical component of a well ordered accounting function and ensures your Organization’s books are being maintained in accordance with GAAP. Closing the books generally entails recording all financial transactions, recording any corporate credit card activity, recording any revenue generated, calculating appropriate accruals and prepaids, addressing any technical accounting issues such as deferred revenue, reconciling the bank accounts and finally preparing balance sheet reconciliations. Once the month end close process is complete it's time to review the income and expense accounts versus budget and for any unusual variances and to prepare and present financial statements. The more efficient and repeatable this process is the more time you have to prepare for your board meetings and any other reporting requirements you may have.
The ability to produce timely and accurate financial statements within a reasonable time from the end of the previous month ensures that the executive team has a clear view of operations going into the next month. Financial statements are critical to management's ability to make decisions in a timely manner. Before the financial reports can be generated the monthly close must occur. The more efficiently financial transactions and information can be transferred, processed, and formalized the more expedient the monthly close and financial reporting cycle can be. BC Cloud Solutions' team and systems are integrated with your operations resulting in an impressive streamlined experience.
Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivables
Organizations have better control over their payables and receivables processes with the implementation of our team, tools, and best practices approach. Applying a combination of web-based workflows and outsourced processing, your BC Cloud Solutions team streamlines the payables and receivables process for your Organization. Everything is digitized for reference making approvals move quickly and the payable process more predictable and efficient. On the receivables side having an organized and efficient process gets you cash in the bank sooner. Better yet, your control increases while your costs and risks decrease, enabling you to do more.
Credit & Collections
When it comes to credit and collections, no two clients' needs are alike. Your organization has a unique business model and unique customers. Your BC Cloud Solutions financial team is here to help. The BC Cloud Solutions team is seasoned with years of business experience and intent on obtaining the best results on behalf of its clients.
Whether it is putting in place a sound customer acceptance/credit approval process prior to entering into a financial relationship with a client, ensuring a top notch invoicing process or managing the Organization's Accounts Receivable balances to ensure your clients are paying within stated terms, we are here to help. Any delays or hiccups in the Order to Cash process can put a strain on cash flow and raise a red flag to investors. Your BC Cloud Solutions CFO and team can help this process run optimally.
Budgeting & Forecasting
CEO's have the important task of building and maintaining investor confidence in the business. Poor cash management is credited as one of the major reasons behind the failure of Organizations. One of the most successful elements of strategic cash management is to have a detailed annual budget/operating plan in place. It’s not enough to simply take the current burn rate and multiply it over time. Preparing detailed bottoms up plan requires thinking through all of the cost drivers which will increase expenditures in tandem with your revenue and growth drivers. A budget/operating plan communicates to board members and executives the financial demands of growth, allowing for informed decision making in the short and long term.
Policies and Procedures
Financial controls and legal compliance can be a major headache in every organization. The complexities associated with managing diverse teams are issues that every organization faces. Regardless of your workforce structure, BC Cloud Solutions provides a cohesive Finance and HR back office operation with oversight and controls that mitigate risks while growing alongside your organization.
No one-size-fits-all solution exists for building a respectful workplace as well as financial controls and accountability. However, a great place to start is to have a well-documented Policy and Procedure Manual or Employee Handbook in place that covers everything from your Travel and Expense policies to Unlawful Harassment. Our experienced CPOs and CFOs draw from real organization experience to identify areas of risk in your organization to draft a concise Policy and Procedure Manual or Employee Handbook. Our on-demand format gives your organization access to the best advice from experienced and qualified resources right from the start, and through every phase of your Organization’s growth.
Your CFO will help your organization with financial controls and accountability in an ongoing on-demand format, allowing your organization the best advice from experienced and qualified resources right from the start, and through every phase of your growth and expansion.
Preparing Board Presentations
As the CEO of an Organization, preparing presentations for board meetings without the support of a CFO can consume a great deal of time and energy taking away from the management of the company and focus on product development. Our on-demand CFOs reduce the strain placed on an Organization’s CEO by ensuring that the board and executives are kept fully informed about the financial health and well-being of the company. The board and investors should never be surprised by the company’s results or cash position, and regular professional reporting helps make sure that doesn’t happen.
Without a dedicated CFO, you lack an ally capable of communicating growth, operational achievements, and how each supports the business goals in language and ways investors understand, causing unnecessary tension. BC Cloud Solutions’s CFOs are well versed in reporting and presenting to the boards of Organizations.
Organization GL, D&O, E&O, EPLI, WC
General Liability (GL), Errors & Omissions (E&O), Directors & Officers (D&O), Employment Practices Liability Insurance (EPLI), Workers Compensation (WC) are just some of the alphabet soup of insurance coverage a typical Organization has in place at any point in time. Your Organization may need all of these or just some. Maybe you already have multiple policies in place but want to review your coverage options. Being tasked with getting quotes for coverage seems easy enough, right up until a broker sends you a 48-page pdf form to complete with wording that makes you doubt how well you know the details of your own Organization. Stop scowling over the fine print and let your BC Cloud Solutions CFO take it on. With experience guiding Organizations through various stages of growth, your BC Cloud Solutions CFO is happy to make light work of ensuring your company has the right types and levels of coverage in place and is managing the Organization’s risk profile accordingly.
Cash Management
Did you know that poor cash management is credited as one of the major reasons behind the failure of Organizations? Organizations must be able to forecast their cash burn and cash to zero date accurately despite being in a state of constant change. Established businesses develop effective cash management models over time; however, most new Organizations don’t have this privilege. New Organizations typically have lumpy hiring, low visibility into the timing of future revenue and income sources, one off events and no history on which to base a forecast for future spending. Understanding the current burn, as well as the effect of the growth and cost drivers within your unique Organization, is only part of the puzzle. Having the financial knowledge and Organization experience to model those variables and guide a successful cash management strategy is just as crucial to your Organization’s success. Fortunately, the BC Cloud Solutions team with the CFO at the helm keeps a close eye on all the moving parts enabling your Organization to make the best use of its cash resources.
Banking Relationships
We all know the importance of good relationships in business, and your relationship with your bank is no different.There is a tremendous value to be gained from forming and maintaining a successful relationship with your bank, and it should be a top priority for every Organization. Remember, banks dislike surprises as much as you do. Keeping the bank in the loop ensures the long term collaborative experience you desire. If you treat your bank as part of the team, they typically will react as part of the team.
Banks are an important component of the business model and have tremendous potential to become strategic business allies if relationships are properly nurtured. The BC Cloud Solutions team is seasoned with years of experience negotiating with banks and obtaining the best banking facilities on behalf of clients. To facilitate the bank relationship process, we can provide your Organization with everything you need, including detailed financial reports, schedules, updates, summaries and internal monitoring procedures. Having a dedicated BC Cloud Solutions CFO as part of your team gives the bank additional comfort that your Organization has the financial stability and sophistication to grow responsibly.
Audit Preparation
By being fully prepared ahead of time, the entire audit process can go more smoothly. Your BC Cloud Solutions team makes certain that your records are accurate and organized throughout the year. With years of Organization auditing experience, our professionals understand what auditors need and how they need it provided. BC Cloud Solutions’ audit prep experts will make sure your books and documents are all in order before an audit process starts.
Before the auditors arrive, our team of Accountants will compile your work papers, review accounts, prepare reconciliations and schedules, and draft the financial statements. Once the audit begins, your dedicated BC Cloud Solutions CFO will shepherd you through. The Accounting team answers technical questions on your behalf. And the HR team will conduct the necessary benefits and regulatory audits, identifying areas of risk, and manage your path to compliance.
409a Valuation Support
Every Organization that wants to use deferred compensation arrangements (the most popular being stock options) will need to get an outside valuation in order to set the strike price for those arrangements. As the founder and or CEO, you may believe you are closer to your Organization’s value than anyone else, but you need to go beyond your best guess to satisfy the Internal Revenue Code (IRC) Section 409A. As with all things government related, it’s complicated and can impact your company greatly. The primary purpose of a 409A is to ensure that the proper federal income taxes are paid on deferred compensation arrangements, but it also ensures that these grants are covered by the IRS safe harbor. Specifically, the 409a Valuation arrives at a recommended price at which a stock option can be granted at any point in time. Simply put, if your Organization wants to offer stock options to employees, then the company needs a 409A valuation to comply with federal tax code regarding the strike price for those options.
Failure to comply will result in the federal government taxing you and your employees for that stock and slapping you with heavy fines, usually a 20 percent tax, as well as interest payments. Not only will it make your employees extremely unhappy, but it also jeopardizes the acquisition potential of your Organization. Non-Compliance on 409a valuations may raise a red flag to other possible areas where you have failed to comply with state and federal laws.
Once you start granting options, you’ll need to update your valuation at least every 12 months and more frequently in certain circumstances. BC Cloud Solutions does not perform 409a Valuations. However, your BC Cloud Solutions CFO will guide the process to get the best result for you and your employees.
Tax & Regulatory Compliance
Excellent year-round accounting is the key to a stress-free tax season. With BC Cloud Solutions, your books get closed each month, quarter, and year: each time moving you one step closer to being prepared for tax season. Your BC Cloud Solutions team is equipped to guide your Organization through tax and regulatory issues along the way. Helping you:
Select an excellent tax partner
Maintain your books to enable and facilitate the tax return process
Manage compliance and filings deadlines across multiple jurisdictions & agencies
Maximize your tax deductions and credits (including R&D)
Manage the preparation of all federal, state, and city tax forms
Track and classify business expenses throughout the year
Prepare for audits
And more…
As your Organization matures from infancy into future rounds of funding or acquisition, your BC Cloud Solutions team navigates you through with confidence built on experience and expertise.
Lender & Lease Negotiation
A tremendous strategic opportunity for new Organizations exists when it comes to lease and lender negotiations. Most Organizations pursue some type of bank or venture lending and/or enter into significant facility lease obligations with their landlord. These are just two areas where your BC Cloud Solutions CFO has years of practical experience and can be an invaluable partner to you.
If you are pursuing debt, your BC Cloud Solutions CFO can identify excellent lenders, model the business scenarios used to determine eligibility for a loan, negotiate the terms of the loan and manage the diligence process prior to loan close. You will be working with someone who has been through this process multiple times and can calibrate your deal against the market to ensure you are getting the best deal available.
If you are entering into a multi-year facility lease, there are many areas where you may miss an opportunity to reduce your future exposure and reduce your risk level. Rate per square foot is important but it's also important to understand and negotiate such issues as TI (tenant improvement) allowances, deposit requirements, right to sublease, right to return as is, termination requirements, insurance requirements, any rent escalations and a myriad of other issues that come up when finalizing the master lease agreement. Having your BC Cloud Solutions CFO at your side can make navigating this process so much simpler and efficient for you.
Due Diligence Support
Some Organizations do nothing to prepare for the due diligence process, assuming the people and business plan documents will speak for themselves, but that's risky. During the due diligence process surprises in the evaluation of the management team, documentation, and personnel problems can derail the investment at a critical moment in the business. As CEO of an Organization, your biggest enemy is time. Time to hire the right team and develop your product, time to get to market, time to communicate with all your stakeholders to keep them informed and engaged. The most critical time is when you have someone who wants to invest in or possibly acquire your Organization. It's too late at that point to get things cleaned up and shipshape. Do it right from the beginning.
Once you are in due diligence, it's critical to handle the process efficiently and professionally to instill confidence in your future investor or future owner that you are worthy of their time and money. The on demand BC Cloud Solutions CFO manages the process and ensures you are ready at any point in time to undergo diligence, from start to finish addressing the gaps and potential friction points.
And if your Organization is going through a merger or acquisition, your BC Cloud Solutions CPO can help smooth the integration between the two companies. Often M&As can insert chaos and uncertainty into the organizations, so having a HR partner that has experienced these transitions before can make all the difference. Once the deal is closed, BC Cloud Solutions can guide and assist integrate benefits, culture, teams, compensation, and so much more.
Payroll Administration
Most people think of payroll as being effortless and automatic. Properly processed payroll, paid timely, creates that sense of reliability and trust for your employees. When there are errors, whether due to timing or miscalculations or a number of other seemingly simple issues, you could wind up with dissatisfied, unmotivated employees and a labor law compliance issue. As an Organization, you rely heavily upon happy, motivated employees, and those employees need to be rewarded.
If you handle your company’s payroll in-house, then you know (or should know) the time and attention to detail required to operate seamlessly. Surprisingly, many founders tell us that they run payroll automatically, with no review and no process. That may work in the short term when you have very few employees, but the complexity and demands of the payroll process increase as your staff grows. Imagine what payroll looks like in six to twelve months when you’ve tripled in size and likely have employees in multiple locations. Each pay period should include a series of checks and balances to ensure no errors are made while handling a considerable amount of data that varies from employee to employee. When you outsource your payroll to BC Cloud Solutions, your team is free to devote its time to product development and marketing strategies.
Instead of being overwhelmed by the need to grow your back office, outsource your accounting and human resource needs to BC Cloud Solutions. With your BC Cloud Solutions on demand CFO at the lead, you’ll feel even more prepared to grow quickly.
Employee Handbook
Funding signifies a serious growth point in your Organization. As CEO, you’ve been busy building out every aspect of the business with little to no time carved out for tedious back office tasks. Let alone the drafting of an employee handbook. Then suddenly it seems like you’ve moved from “we’re too small to worry about that” to, “we seriously need an employee handbook” to contain and relay all the necessary info an employee needs to onboard efficiently and contribute successfully. An Organization’s employee handbook also helps you manage the myriad labor law compliance regulations at the state and federal level. It gives your employees a roadmap as to how things work around here….such as what holidays will the company pay for, what is your paid time off policy, maternity and paternity (family) leave, all of these had to be handled in accordance with the law and relayed to your employees in a clear and concise manner. Take a deep breath; we’ve been there before, countless times in fact. Busy CEO’s rely upon our experience and expertise to quickly compile the right employee handbook for their needs. We start with how the Organization is today and incorporate additional benefits and protocols as they evolve.
Benefits Administration
Keeping abreast of HIPPA, ACA, COBRA, and other changing benefit regulations requires constant vigilance. Mistakes can be costly. Relax, knowing that your benefits administration is handled by an experienced and efficient team of professionals. Your BC Cloud Solutions CPO works with your Organization to define and implement your initial benefits, including 401k plans and other perks, so you can attract and maintain a strong team and grow a healthy culture.
Our team follows proven best practices and is up-to-date on the latest legal requirements ensuring a smooth and compliant process. Entrust your Organization’s benefits administration to the experienced professionals at BC Cloud Solutions and free up your staff to focus on other business priorities. Our model focuses on ease-of-access to benefits information for your employees while highlighting the uniqueness of your organization’s offerings.
BC Cloud Solutions orchestrates your entire open enrollment, utilizing cloud-based tools that ensure a streamlined and highly efficient process. Leveraging robust platform tools to keep employees informed and simplifying access to benefits information is an essential element to ensuring employee satisfaction. Working hand in hand with your payroll and timekeeping systems, BC Cloud Solutions can make sure nothing falls through the cracks.
Employee Files & Recordkeeping
Human Resources documents require diligent handling. Employee files need to be kept up to date and compliant with State and Federal regulations. BC Cloud Solutions implements a paperless employee file system to facilitate your People processes and ensure your Organization complies with labor laws, federal, and state regulations and reporting requirements. We electronically store and protect all employee records: W-4's, I-9s, time cards, benefits forms, etc. which enables information accessibility, while controlling security, privacy, and compliance. If you ever need to deliver an EEOC report, or respond to an EDD audit, BC Cloud Solutions can help ensure policies have been followed, records are in order and immediately accessible.
401k Plans
401k Plans can serve as a great employee benefit with or without employer matching. Deciding what plans to choose and how to implement them may not seem obvious for a new company just starting out. There are many considerations to the decision beyond the state of the Organization and the number of employees interested in actively participating in a 401k benefit plan. Your BC Cloud Solutions CPO will navigate you through the decision-making process, helping your Organization to understand the variables at play in determining how to best implement an employee 401k benefit plan that works for the team you have today and the team you may have years from now.
Culture Planning
Our CPOs can help your Organization define and foster a workplace culture worthy of any Best Organization to Work for List. Our seasoned HR professionals are skilled at weaving your culture into every aspect of your Organization from your office environment, benefits and perks, rewards and recognition programs, time off benefits, diverse and inclusive employment practices, plus defining your Values and Mission Statements.
As a founder and or CEO, establishing and setting the tone for culture starts with you. Workplace culture will happen whether you plan for it or not, so it's best to define what it means for your Organization and then maintain it proactively.
Stock Plan Administration
Stock plan administration involves accounting, tax, human resources and legal functions. Responsibilities include routine reconciliation of monthly activity, accounting for equity compensation, reconciliation of plan reserves, and award processing. Depending on the size of your team this could require hours or days each month.
Rather than letting the responsibility of administering your corporate stock plans fall on the shoulders of someone overloaded with other responsibilities, entrust the job to your BC Cloud Solutions team. Our system can accommodate your unique requirements and evolving needs. With extensive experience in administering stock plans for Organizations, BC Cloud Solutions professionals take pride in ensuring accountability and transparency to stock plan administration.
Ad Hoc Projects
When the unexpected project or document filing arises, your BC Cloud Solutions team of professionals led by an OnDemand CFO is ready to handle it, putting years of experience, the latest technology, tools, and professional knowledge to work for you. Your VC asked for a five-year plan by next Tuesday? We are working the weekend. Your acquirer asked for an audit before you can close the deal? We are ready to spring into action. Did you get an ominous letter from a state or federal agency? Turn to us for help. As your outsourced accounting function, we handle all manner of last-minute requests and ad hoc projects. At every turn, your Organization’s outsourced back office is there.